Welsh Liberal Democrats

Responding to the Health Minister's announcement thatover 50s health checks that were in Labour's manifesto will now instead take place on-line, Kirsty Williams, Leader of the Welsh Liberal Democrats commented:

"Welsh Labour were very proud of this much trumpeted policy, but today we have found out it is merely another Welsh Labour pledge that it can't deliver on. To say this policy has been watered-down would be putting it mildly.

"The Welsh Liberal Democrats have consistently raised concerns about whether the Welsh Labour Government would actually be able to achieve this policy. Time and time again we were assured everything was fine, yet now we are seeing this massive climb down.

"Only last year the Health Minister explicitly said that implementation for this policy was planned from 2013 onwards, it is astonishing that the Minister has waited until now to inform us that she actually intends to implement this policy online.

"The Health Minister has stated today that stakeholders have raised questions about the value of over 50s universal health checks, but why hadn't the Welsh Government asked these questions before it made the manifesto pledge? It is clear that this policy was never based on medical advice and the groundwork for it had never been done. It is astonishing that a Government that has been in administration for over a decade can still be utterly clueless about what it can and can't achieve."